On one hand, this is the saddest day of the year so far for me. No more incandescent light bulbs. I stocked up while I could.
I was actually an early advocate of some of the alternative bulbs. But when government and greencreepies (don’t bother with a dictionary; I made it up) decided it wasn’t my choice, I rebelled. Letter F ’em, I say.
When enough people think the twisty light bulbs are cheap enough, have the right color tone, and save enough money, they’ll buy them. Same goes for LED bulbs. I’d almost rather live in the dark than buy a light bulb that government told me to — even if it turns out to be the very same light bulb I would have bought willingly. But I guess that’s just me.
And what’s with all this saving energy nonsense, anyway? When government minds its own limited business, energy is plentiful and cheap. And there’s no disgrace in wasting it. The entire carbon footprint thingy is the nonsense of hippie remnants. Yes, we should save the planet, but part of me would rather destroy the planet than have those people save it on my behalf.
And, finally, on the other hand, maybe this will turn out to be a good thing. — MC
Mike Caro says:
The new bulbs cause me significant eye strain. Incandescent light bulbs are still available for “Rough Service” applications. I just ordered my bulbs online. They’re expensive. I’ll find out if they are worth it.
I’m in favor of saving the environment. However, I don’t see the advantage of using bulbs that represent a serious hazard when broken. The Scientific American website says that estimates are as low as 2% of the bulbs being recycled. What will be the long term effect of heavy metal pollution to our water supply?
The web article quotes the EPA director as saying, “”Our first preference is not to see them go into landfills,” Berlow says. “Recycling really closes the loop on this as best we can right now. But on the other hand, we also don’t see huge risks from them going into landfills, either.””
Summary – Take extreme care when bulbs break, but not a problem in our land fills. The government experts might be correct even though it seems ridiculous. I’d feel better, if the government experts didn’t have a history of bending science to support policy like they have on global warming.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-compact-fluorescent-lightbulbs-dangerous